Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Luis the shadowboxer

I stepped back into this combox at the Jolly Nihilist's blog to correct one Luis' comments. Luis is a piece of work, for sure. One of the more rabid types you'll find on t3h 1nt3rw3b2, and his emotion and fervor lead him to frequently misrepresent Christianity and creationism, and of course he doesn't care whether he's doing it.

Prove that spirits are logically incoherent entities. I'm chuckling at you now. You're emoting. You're a good acolyte. They've got you right where they want you, man - you're their tool.

...said your prescientific nomads

1) Please prove God didn't ALSO say that, THROUGH said prescientific nomads.
2) You have quite a butt-clenched definition of science. You think they never did any experiments at all? None? Never saw repeated events and drew conclusions from those observations? How could you possibly prove that?
Oh wait - you can't and don't care to. We've seen that many times here already.

And neither were you, meaning that you have no "objective basis"

That's just a stupid statement. GOD WAS THERE and He said how it went down. The text is objective and static. Doesn't depend on me at all.

Overlapping evidence from disparate fields that all fits the predictions derived from Darwinian theory

1) Question-begging doesn't count as evidence.
2) If a given datum is explicated under Darwinism AND under YEC (I'm YEC, FYI), it's not evidence for either side.

Uniformitarianism, in the sense of laws of nature that remain constant over an appreciable length of time, aren't an "assumption", they're a requirement of our existence. Why? Because if we lived in a universe that was precariously unstable, we wouldn't be here to talk about it since the requisite processes needed to bring us about wouldn't have been able to get under way

Doubt I could've said it better myself.
Now, you can take un-ism on blind faith, and that's OK - just admit you're doing it. It's pretty clear but y'all usually prefer to smokescreen and cover up that fact.
The question is: If naturalism is true, how can you acct for that assumption? Saying "We're here, so, you know, duh" isn't an answer - it's an expression of blind faith. The Muslim could just as easily say "Allah is real. How do I know? We're here, so, you know, duh."

but I suppose that for someone who doesn't actually care about physics and chemistry

Not a big fan of correctly characterising opponents, eh?

the way in which the physical universe actually behaves won't matter since the non-physical mind-stuff vapor cloud called God can always come along and tinker as Rhology sees fit.

also, how when one DOES apply uniformitarianism, the Darwinian narrative fits the actual observations beautifully.

1) Then it's just as funny how, when one DOES apply the Bible, the Christian narrative fits the actual observations beautifully.
Huh - crazy how that works. Now justify your assumption. All you're saying so far is that if you make a so-far-unjustified assumption that y'all made up, it all works out.
2) And the facts DON'T fit.

when predictions are made from Darwinism, and the observations are then made

That sounds a lot more like ID than Darwinism.

because Tiktaalik roseae, a transitional form of the sort that evolutionary theory PREDICTS should exist

Prove that Tiktaalik had any children. Go ahead.
I'd encourage you to actually read Gee's book.

even though you don't see any need to justify your own (genuine) assumption that the unstable God universe is more plausible than the stable Godless one I'm purporting

Right, that's why I have a 5-year old blog doing just that all the time.
Don't these strawmen ever tire you a bit?

your cognitive faculties have been utterly decimated by years of religious indoctrination and self-reinforcing guff

Coming from someone who has no reason to think ANY human's cog faculties reliably produce true beliefs, that you think that doesn't bother me.

that the science used to construct the very computer you're using to spout your asinine propaganda

OOoh, Strawman #4! You must be under the mistaken assumption that the Xtian worldview does not support science. Or you're being dishonest b/c you're apparently a bit of a stuck-up jerk.

since this very SAME science tells us that Mr Darwin knew quite a bit more than the ancients.

Or maybe the ancients knew not to make the same unjustified assumptions Darwin did.

If humanity had been constrained to use your "logic", we'd frankly still be burning witches.

1) Prove you know anything about Xtianity beyond your skewed strawman, and prove it.
2) Prove there's sthg morally wrong with burning witches, on naturalism. Why is that a bad thing? After all, if they weren't strong enough to avoid such a fate, it's more like a helpful thing that they were removed from the gene pool.
If you can't prove either, let the reader note how ridiculous you sound - why should anyone listen to you?

If so, you'd know that it bares NO RESEMBLANCE WHATSOEVER to Genesis...there was plenty of stuff happening BEFORE the CE

1) You're apparently having difficulty following the argument so far. Let me help - we're talking about NATURALISM, not YEC. So what's your explanation ON NATURALISM?
2) I'm YEC. God created Adam and the rest of the organisms, and Eve, and the Earth, as mature specimens. Not as fetuses.

representatives of many of the phyla present today don't even APPEAR until much later than the Cambrian, which kind of makes a mockery of your "God dunnit"

Why? Uh oh, not more self-referential question-begging about the age of fossils that you can't prove had children. You're not doing that, right? You'd look like a fool if you were, so hopefully you'll think a bit deeply and give a good reason.

don't try using science to bolster your Bronze Age mythologies

Man, thank God you're here to tell me not to do what I'm not doing!

I'll "interact with" the Cambrian explosion any day of the week.

Please do. Start now. I'll give you a mulligan on your first 4 tries just now.

"Your "Bronze Age" comment commits the genetic fallacy and also the bias of modernity."

Translation: using reason is beyond the pale, and we must revert back to modes of thinking from a time when people believe

So, no answer. Noted.
I mean, you don't even care that you re-committed the genetic fallacy! What conclusion should a truth-seeker draw about you when you don't care that you engage in fallacious reasoning?

"Logical fallacies and prejudicial bias are no place to begin a rational conversation,"

While rejecting the whole field of evolutionary theory is?

1) You know, maybe I have good reason to do so.
2) Go ahead, prove that evolutionary theory is as well-attested and foundational as is logic itself. Have fun.

1) Yes, it's quite obvious that many, especially the most loud-mouthed, scientists are complete novices when it comes to logic and philosophy.
2) And you couldn't have thrown them under the bus any better than you just did! Luis gives good backhanded compliments - "the world's most proficient scientists" care little for their logical fallacies and prejudicial biases. Hahahahahaa. That's pretty funny stuff.